DFC - Vulnerability Management Analyst

• Active Public Trust clearance
• B.S. Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field
• 5+ years of cybersecurity experience, including three or more years in vulnerability management, security compliance, POA&M management, or a closely related function.
• Hands-on experience analyzing authenticated scan results and validating vulnerabilities using Tenable Nessus, Qualys, Microsoft Defender, or comparable enterprise platforms.
• Demonstrated ability to assess vulnerability risk using CVSS, exploitability, CISA KEV status, asset criticality, exposure, mission impact, threat intelligence, and compensating controls.
• Experience creating and maintaining POA&M records, tracking remediation milestones, reconciling GRC and ticketing systems, validating closure evidence, and documenting false-positive determinations.
• Working knowledge of FISMA, the NIST Risk Management Framework, NIST SP 800-53 controls, NIST SP 800-40 vulnerability and patch-management principles, CISA KEV/BOD 22-01 requirements, and federal continuous-monitoring expectations.
• Ability to communicate technical risk clearly to federal cybersecurity leaders, System Owners, engineers, administrators, auditors, and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Strong analytical writing, data-quality, documentation, prioritization, and time-management skills in a deadline-driven environment.
• Active Security+, CySA+, CEH, GCVA, CISSP or other relevant security certifications preferred.
• Coordinate authenticated vulnerability scans with DFC stakeholders at frequencies aligned with policy, system criticality, exposure, threat conditions, and Government direction.
• Analyze output from Tenable, Qualys, Microsoft Defender, and other Government-approved vulnerability, endpoint, configuration, and posture-management platforms.
• Validate scanner findings against the operational environment and distinguish valid findings from false positives using documented rationale and supporting evidence.
• Assess and assign severity using CVSS, DFC policy, exploitability, known-exploitation status, asset criticality, external exposure, mission impact, and relevant threat intelligence.
• Recommend risk-informed remediation priorities, actions, timelines, evidence requirements, and closure criteria.
• Coordinate with engineering, operations, application, cloud, endpoint, and system administration teams to establish remediation ownership, dependencies, and target completion dates
• Provide rapid analysis and coordination for CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV), Binding Operational Directive 22-01 requirements, CISA Emergency Directives, vendor-declared zero-days, and vulnerabilities with active exploitation.
• Notify the ISSM within four hours of applicable CISA notification, vendor disclosure, Government notification, or Contractor identification.
• Verify exposure across applicable CSAM authorization boundaries and deliver a written impact assessment within one business day.
• Document affected systems, boundaries and assets; severity; exposure; exploitability; known exploitation; mission impact; remediation ownership; required timelines; recommended action; and residual-risk considerations.
• Track emergency remediation against CISA-, DFC-, or Government-directed deadlines and provide written confirmation of remediation status, compliance status, residual risk, and closure evidence.
• Use CSAM as the authoritative POA&M and compliance ledger and ServiceNow as the operational remediation ticketing record.
• Create complete POA&M items in CSAM within three business days after finding identification or Government direction, unless the Government establishes another deadline.
• Populate and maintain required fields, including identifier, weakness description, affected system and control, severity, source, responsible owner, required resources, scheduled completion date, milestones, status, residual risk, and closure evidence.
• Maintain bidirectional traceability so each applicable ServiceNow remediation ticket links to its CSAM POA&M item and each CSAM POA&M record references the appropriate ServiceNow ticket.
• Track remediation through closure, monitor milestone integrity and aging, and coordinate scheduled-completion-date changes only after federal authorization.
• Conduct monthly ServiceNow-to-CSAM reconciliation; identify stale or duplicate records, missing links or evidence, inconsistent status, inaccurate dates, and other data-quality issues; issue a written discrepancy log and track gaps to resolution.
• Prepare risk-acceptance or exception recommendation packages when remediation cannot be completed within applicable timelines or scheduled-completion-date constraints.
• Document the affected system and weakness, operational and mission impacts, exploitability, exposure, residual risk, compensating controls, remediation constraints, proposed duration and expiration, review interval, and conditions for continued acceptance.
• Route recommendation packages to the AODR through the COR and ISSM for federal decision and accurately record approved decisions in CSAM.
• Clearly preserve federal authority: do not accept risk for DFC, approve exceptions, extend POA&M dates without authorization, or make final closure decisions.

Originally posted on Himalayas